Page 14

CHAPTER 14

Connor

Senna leads me into an empty waiting room with paintings and photos spread across a wall. A snarling bulldog labelled, “Mabel, our cutest girl” is next to one of a python with the name Edna emblazoned across it. I shudder.

My kitten sleeps soundly in a pink and white fleece blanket against my chest. My heart beats in rhythm with her little breaths, and I struggle not to test that she’s okay. As we travelled in a car Senna borrowed, my hands brushed the kitten’s ribs. This poor girl would have died if I hadn’t struggled to sleep and walked the city.

It’s the one positive from the last twenty-four hours.

It’s always been difficult to sleep the night before a race, especially so recently since I haven’t settled in any kind of rhythm due to the time difference and it only being several races into the season. But that image of Senna as a sexy boss, with her usual sass and attitude, did a number on me. Every time I closed my eyes, I recalled her team shirt straining against her chest and those long legs I want wrapped around my head. Inevitably, Antoine and his winks got into my thoughts, too.

Senna hasn’t asked any more about my insomnia, but she will. My thoughts are cut short by a male voice. “Senna, you’re looking as gorgeous as ever.”

My shoulders tighten, which causes the kitten to wake up and chirp angrily at me.

“Sorry, little one,” I whisper before turning to a man with more muscles than a powerlifter addicted to protein shakes laughing with my Senna. No, my boss, Senna. She’s not mine in any other way.

I grit my teeth and offer the stranger a sour glare, but he only has eyes for her.

“Do you want to come through with the kitten?” He beams at Senna, but then he sees me, and his mouth turns down at the corners. He replaces it with a fake smile, which I mirror. “And your…friend.”

When she doesn’t correct him with the words subordinate, driver, or nemesis, a genuine smile replaces my faux one. It’s a win I’ll hold as close to my heart as this kitten.

“Connor Dane,” I say, introducing myself, but he’s walking towards the back, forgetting me.

I walk behind Senna and the vet as their arms brush against each other’s. Technically, his flexing muscles brush against her arms. I bet I could take him in a fight, though. I might not have his bulk, but I’m a scrappy bastard when I fight for something that matters.

Senna laughs at something he says. I turn my cap around so it faces backwards when I witness him touch the small of her back to lead her into the treatment room. I used to make her laugh like that. My heart aches at the realisation I’m more likely to make her cry than laugh these days.

As we crowd into a small sterile treatment room, I clutch the kitten and ease her onto the metal table. She wakes slowly, blinking her big eyes. All the stress of the last twenty-four hours slips away as the fluffy ball of cuteness stares at me like I’m her hero.

“Hello,” the bodybuilding vet says to my kitten. “You can call me Brad.”

Of course he’s called Brad. I roll my eyes until I catch Senna staring at me. I blink several times and mumble, “Must have cat hair in them.”

She stares into my eyes, searching for the hair. A hint of amber gives her eyes a glow that reminds me of autumns kicking leaves and laughing. I can’t look away. She reaches for my face, and I hold my breath, desperate for her touch, yet I still attempt to hide yearning from owning every part of my face. Her thumb brushes my cheek, and my skin tingles.

I whisper, “I think it’s still there,” when she starts to pull away.

My entire being craves her touch.

I breathe in her orange blossom scent as she hesitates, her hand in the air. My eyes drop to her mouth as she wets her lower lip. I can’t breathe as she touches me again, her thumb brushing my cheek. The softness of her touch makes me shiver.

“You know, stray kittens commonly have fleas. You should probably flea bomb or wash everything this one has touched,” Brad says, side-eying us. I’ve never wanted to punch someone more.

Senna yanks back her hand and turns away from me as Brad checks the kitten over, examining her ears and lifting her lips to investigate her teeth while asking Senna how she’s been. “I expected a call when I saw it was a race weekend here, but I didn’t expect to be enjoying a different kind of tiger.”

I choke on my saliva.

Senna’s eyes widen as she says to me, “It’s a joke. He calls me tiger in jest.”

I glare at Brad, who scowls back. “Sure,” I grunt and then mumble, although, surely, in this airless examination room, it will be heard, “He’s a fucking hoot.”

My kitten does the cutest yawn. As she opens her mouth, she reveals all her tiny teeth and a little tongue.

“So how do you two know each other, Brad?” I draw out his name sardonically. I’m secretly hoping to get a glare from Senna, but she’s staring Brad down.

He chuckles, and I fist my hands. “Well, Clive?—”

“It’s Connor,” I snap.

“Sure, whatever. Let’s say I’m the one Senna comes to when she’s in Melbourne and she needs to work out some stress.”

“Brad,” Senna warns.

Brad holds up his hands, and even they have muscles. I want to believe it’s from crying and wanking over Senna, who can’t possibly like him. What is there to like?

“We’re friends—good friends who like to spend nights together a couple of times a year,” Brad adds.

I grind my teeth to stop myself from asking more questions. I don’t want to hear about her friend with benefits. I stroke the top of my kitten’s head and scratch behind her ear with one finger, which makes her press her head against my hand. Senna does her other ear, and we smile briefly at each other. I won’t read too much into the way her eyes soften as she looks between me and my furry baby or how she clucks at the kitten like this is a real fucking moment between us.

“Anyway,” Brad says, cutting my happiness short, “we’re going to have to give her?—”

“She has a name,” I add, although I’ve not named her yet.

Brad glares, but it’s Senna’s stare that seeps beneath my skin. She tucks some hair behind her ear as she strokes the kitten. “Which is?”

“Coults,” I say, as if I haven’t that second decided to name her with one of Senna’s good nicknames.

Brad huffs as Coults, the big-eyed kitten, gazes at me, her eyes fluttering with tiredness.

“I like it,” Senna states, stroking one of Coults’s big kitten ears. “Hello, baby. You’ve got quite a name. If anyone is going to kick ass and make the others behave, it’s you.”

Brad shrinks a little, and my heart does a wild dance in my chest. I cover my smug grin with my hand, but it still peeks out because it’s so fucking massive.

The rest of the inspection continues like this. Senna adores the kitten and acts sweeter with me than she has in years, and Brad softens a little and stops flexing the biceps no one’s paying attention to.

Before long, Senna gets in the car as I say goodbye to Coults. I can’t have a cat due to my job, but that doesn’t stop my nose from itching with oncoming sobs. Tears collect in my eyelashes as I whisper goodbye. I kiss her head briefly, and she coos and gives me one last big-eyed stare. If a kitten doesn’t think I’m all bad, maybe there’s hope. A tear slips down my cheek, and I turn my cap back around, keeping the brim low as I mumble, “You’re safe now, Coults.”

Brad takes my number so his assistant can update me on her progress.

He checks to make sure Senna can’t hear us, and then squares his shoulders at me. “You should know that when it comes to Senna, she needs someone to protect her, and I’ve been trying to be that guy for her for a while. I’m her future, so leave her alone.”

“Whatever. We’re just friends,” I reply gruffly. “And I don’t get why everyone thinks she needs protecting. She’s a fucking force.”

“You don’t understand her at all.”

I shrug my shoulders at him and blow a kiss to Coults, who falls asleep as he pops her into a carrier.

“Don’t forget to flea bomb everything you own,” he adds.

As I get in the car, I struggle to relax my furrowed brows. Should I tell Senna what Brad said, but in a chatty, cheery way that doesn’t reveal my feelings? I turn to the window. I don’t want to hear her laughter when she hears that Brad thought there was something between us.

I yawn wide. It’s been a long fucking day. In the last thirty hours, I’ve rescued and said goodbye to the best kitten in the world, crashed, and met Mr. The Only Pussy He Knows How to Satisfy Eats Cat Food Vet, all on no sleep.

As I nod off, Senna’s voice filters through my exhaustion. “I’ve only seen Brad twice in the last year. I had business in the city in January, which was the last time. I wouldn’t have contacted him, but it was after Niki’s accident and Dad’s heart attack. As I landed, I learned Dad was stepping down from the team and didn’t want me in charge. I needed someone. Not that I need to explain myself to you.”

“I’d rather you didn’t,” I reply, although the reasons she’s giving to justify herself make me realise she’s got a lot going on, and all of us were too selfish to consider how she was coping.

My stomach burns with the renewed sense that I must be here for her, not protect her like Niki’s instructions. I want to hold her as she deals with shit, not take it away from her. I want to be the person she comes to when bad things happen and for her to know I’m a call away. She should know that if she’d turned up at mine when she got news about her dad, I’d have done everything to give her a safe space while she processed it and sat with her as she ran through ideas to change the situation. I shake away the images of our relationship playing out differently than it has. She doesn’t want me.

“I don’t need to know about your conquests,” I mumble.

Lights flash across her face as she drives us to the hotel. “Oh, come on, Dane, you’re the biggest player in this car.”

“And yet, out of the two of us, you’ve had sex more recently. Not that I’m judging.”

“You haven’t had sex in nearly six months? For me, that’s normal, but for you, that’s…”

As she fumbles for a word, I remain silent. She wouldn’t believe my reasons, especially as they’re related to seeing her at Ralf’s wedding.

As a teenager, she did what no other woman has: challenged me, made me smile, and cared for me. However, she’s off-limits for many reasons, including the same one that kept her off-limits when I first fell in love with her: she’s still my best friend’s sister.

I reply between gritted teeth, “You could do much worse than Mr. Bodybuilder.”

She grunts but doesn’t push a conversation. I breathe in her orange blossom perfume. It’s become an entirely new scent on her due to the smell of oil and rubber tyres from the garage that’s probably in her hair. As she stops at traffic lights, she swipes a dash of lip balm, and its mango aroma surrounds us. I count to ten as I fight the temptation to taste the mango for myself and show her that Mr. Bodybuilder has nothing on me when it comes to kissing the feistiest, sexiest woman I’ve known.

I rest my head on the chair and pretend to sleep so she doesn’t ask questions I can’t answer.